Thanks for posting the interesting shot Mike.
Did you take another to the right of this one?
... the snow might give away features for potential new lines on the main part of the wall, as the above shot sort of finishes where Comet Ramp starts.

Holy crap! I've never seen so much snow on the north wall. We very careful with messing around down
there with snow and ice. Lots of big boulder chasm to slip and break your leg. It was bad enough in the
pouring rain when i did it in winter.

No frogs. I was just happy to finally get the snow daisys in season. Last couple of years I've missed them, or they've not appearred at all.

People might be interested to know there is now functional toliets just below the Kosci summit. Lights come on automatically. It's odd having such luxury in an alpine setting, but I guess it's not exactly a wilderness. My brand new head torch decided not to work, so it was nice not having to "use the facilities" by moonlight alone.

You have some excellent shots in your portfolio from your Tassie trip, which definitely entice the viewer to visit those locations. Looks like the weather was half amenable for you too at places like Frenchmans Cap.
Given information on recent posts you also did well not to encounter fixed tatt at Ben Lomond!

The trip was mostly about photos and hiking into Frenchmans which was very tiring but well worth it. However Owen did lead me up a new route of his at Stacks Bluff, Ben Lomond. Only grade 19 and I was seconding, but it was one of the scariest times of my life.

About half-way up I was crying "take me back to Arapiles!" and otherwise whimpering over the large chunks of rock peeling off, the mossy holds, the hanging belays off a single crack, the exposure provided by 80m of unbroken vertical columns dropping away beneath my feet, having to dog the 2nd, the way steep 1.5 hr approch over house sized scree fields..... basically I didn't stop feeling uneasy, until we'd rapped off a chockstone and touched ground again. One climb in Tassie and it was enough. Back to taking photos for me I think :-)

PS: When looking at the photos, if you switch the "style" to slideshow, the image size to "large" and go "full screen" it looks pretty cool.

Hey, dont bag my new route mIke, I still recon its a classic! Disapointed the variant finish was too hard for me though. I see you neglect to mention the bit of tatt that was wrapped around the retreat chockstone....

On 31/03/2008 oweng wrote:>the bit of tatt that was wrapped around the retreat chockstone....

Looking at the other thread about such I was afraid to mention it. Are you going to hike back in there and retrieve the sling?

> Hey, dont bag my new route mIke, I still recon its a classic!

Don't get me wrong, twas an heroic lead worthy of praise. More than I could handle certainly. Guess I've just been spoon fed too many easy romps at Araps to have cultivated a liking for your type of "classic". You would certainly be fit and "well hard" if that crag was your local weekender.

Yeah, im keen to try a couple of the lines to the left the one we did. They will get me to the same ledge system, so will be able to remove the sling. I'll probably have to wait till next summer now though, so someone else may well beat me to it (actually hopefully they will, as the other lines look scary).

Quite an evocative shot you have captured there Mike, that conjures up (for me at least), strong mind stories/emotions*.
(*The path linking past to future, some windows with light and others not, etc).

Like the windmill sunrise stuff Mike. Interesting to see a tank of that size type attached to a windmill too! The full light shot certainly shows the sunrise ones in a different perspective. ~> Would never have known the wheat was there otherwise!

Quite a different theme from last week. You are certainly getting out and about!